Is This Really Possible? : V - Skyrim

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:42 pm

Thats why they do it for a living, and we just play them. ITs an undertaking for sure, and impressive, but they have resources, money, and talent. Thats how.

Agree on money and ressources, talents ? Its been better.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:40 am

Never doubt Todd Howard and his awesome minions.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:00 pm

Yes its their job to do all that. If they cant do all that then they shouldn't be video game developers.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 2:24 pm

You do realize that that Bethesda has a large team and almost 5 years to work on Skyrim right? No, its impossible.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:38 pm

I highly doubt Bethesda is going to jump on a new engine without learning some stuff about it. Ecspecially when it comes to being able to do stuff that they've always wanted to do and they couldnt before and now they can. Todd and his team know exactly what the PS3 and Xbox 360 is capable of and they are going to push this game to their limits. With a team of 100+, I think we'll have less bug issues as well. Obviously theres gonna be some doubts about Skyrim but what game doesnt have doubts? All I can see happening when the game comes out is nothing but excitement.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:24 pm

Yes its their job to do all that. If they cant do all that then they shouldn't be video game developers.

With that said then that goes for all other game developers out there. With Bethesda getting all kinds of awards for their games, that should tell you something.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:27 pm

While it is true that they can't get a perfect estimate on engine power there are limits based on the machines that will use the engine have. The only way to improve the engine capabilities after it is built is to either change the hardware that is using it or tear down the engine and rebuild it.

that's not true at all
things can be optimized (which is the main way engines improve with sequels)
they do things like take find a way to draw things without taking up as much memory, then put memory elsewhere to make it better. You can code things in various ways, there are no rules, however, it just so happens that some ways are more efficient than other.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:10 pm

Why would this be impossible? It took them 4 years to develop Oblivion, updated engine, uncertain hardware platform (Xbox) and all. The designers then went on to create Fallout 3, while the bulk of the engine programmers was free to create the next big "Bethesda engine" that is being used in Skyrim.

Between the release of Oblivion (march 2006) and now lie almost 5 years, and until the release of Skyrim it will be more than 5.5 years. I don't see the problem of creating an engine in the time between the release of Oblivion and the release of Fallout 3 (october 2008). That is 2.5 years in which the engine guys could tinker with the new tech until the designers were done with Fallout 3 and were about to begin with Skyrim. And even at that state the engine would not have to be perfectly done, a lot of design work can be done even if parts of the engine are not yet complete.

Even if you only look at the time between Fallout 3 and the Skyrim release, it is 3 years, three quarters of the time it took them to build Oblivion. The http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/credits list 23 programmers and "additional programmers". In the http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/fallout-3/credits this number increased to 36. Do you guys really believe you need 13 programmers more to change an existing engine than what you needed to create said engine in the first place? I believe that the bulk of those programmers was in fact working on the new Skyrim engine and just helped out with the old engine when the designers requested a new feature.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:17 pm

They made a lot of money from Oblivion, so now I think they have a larger team.

^^That^^

Bethesda has 100+ members. Thats 50 member on fallout and 50 on Skyrim, it's completely possible. You also have to take into account that when 50 people put in 8-10 hours of work per day 5-6 days a week for 4 years (not counting over time or when they work all night, which they do) it gives a ton of time to work on a game.

I mean look at Dragon Age, not even a year after the first one came out the second one was announced.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:51 am

So they built a brand new engine and a massive new entry in the elder scrolls since oblivion and they also developed fallout 3? How is that even possible. That's a massive undertaking. Creating a new elder scrolls is a big enough project but simultaneously developing a new engine and then having to create a massive game like elder scrolls as your very first game on that engine!?!? How? How could they even begin to develop the game when they couldn't be exactly sure what the new engine would be capable of? Not to mention they developed fallout 3 all the while!

It's impossible! It's all an illusion!

Welcome to the world of video games, where developers dance with the devil to satisfy you and I. :thumbsup: They had a good amount of time, more members, and great dedication. The last thing gets you a great game, I bet.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:18 am

They have many employees and two seperate teams for Fallout and TES...

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:39 am

Activision manages to have the sequels released every year, Beth took 4.

Seriously though Beth have an army of people working on this.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:59 pm

By the look of the screen shots the "new engine" is simply a massive upgrade to the Oblivion one, which make sense - why fix what was not broken? Oblivion engine needed some fine tuning and some features added, it did not need a complete rebuild, the tech haven't changed quite that much yet. I'm not console player, so I may be wrong, but I think Skyrim is going to be on the same type of consoles Oblivion was? It makes no sense at all to do an engine from scratch in that case. And a good clean up and fix take less time than building something form the ground.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 3:23 pm

Im sure modders will soon find out its limitations.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:32 pm

I'm guessing they view it as an investment. This thing isn't going to be open source, and wont have been developed solely for Skyrim. Skyrim will be their chance to showcase it to the rest of the gaming industry, and sell it on to rival studios for a healthy profit. Not to mention the engine will probably be used in more of their game too. I mean, look at the Oblivion engine. Look at all the games it's been used in. Like I said, it's an investment. A time consuming bulky investment, yes, but they have to be made at some point. And they're certainly worth it long term.

Besides, it's not like they haven't taken their sweet time... :tongue:

They're probably not going to sell it to rival studios. Zenimax has made an agreement with partner company id software (doom, wolfenstein, quake..etc) that their newest engine be internal only. I'd consider the id tech 5 engine (currently running doom 4 and Rage) to be the crown jewel engine of Zenimax's arsenal. The fact that they're not licencing it out to anyone leaves little chance that Bethesda's gonna licence theirs out.

There was a long period of time after Fallout 3 when Bethesda was literally doing nothing. It didn't feel as long because Obsidian filled the empty void with Fallout New Vegas buzz.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:12 pm

You do realize that redemption is the second game on rockstars RAGE engine right? Gta iv was the first and the difference between the two is night and day. That's exactly why I'm worried that skyrim won't be all that it can be because its the first game on the new engine just like gta iv was the first on RAGE. Will fallout 4 be to the new engine what red dead is too the RAGE engine?

Well just because one game developer failed to utilize the full potential of their new engine the first time around doesn't mean that every game developer will fail too.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:06 pm

Doesn't most new games have new engines as well?

You make it sound as if it's the world's biggest accomplishment and that Bethesda are alone with it.

Sure it's impressive, just saying that it's not the world's biggest accomplishment that only Bethesda has done by a miracle.
I mean... just look at Red Dead Redemption.

Darn, look at Crysis as well. Even though that game can't be fully compared... as it's not an RPG. Still, that's the most impressive engine-work to date, despite it being from 2007.

No, most new games run on updated engines from previous games, not completely new ones.

By the look of the screen shots the "new engine" is simply a massive upgrade to the Oblivion one, which make sense - why fix what was not broken?

Nope, this is completely new. Not the engine they used for OB and MW.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:17 am

they didn't start making the current engine RIGHT after oblivion.

the new one was in development over the course of Skyrim production, so in other words, in the earliest build of Skyrim it probably looked like a prettier Oblivion

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:11 pm

Pretty sure they have more then one team.

They can have one team already working on another game/planning it and then just borrow people from Oblivion's team once their work is done, so it overlaps.

It's not like they onlt have a finite amount of people for the entire company that work solely on one project.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:29 am

Don't forget that as work on Fallout 3 tapered off to level-design and such, programmers probably slowly started to switch to coding, brainstorming, and planning for Skyrim.

It doesn't take more than a few programmers to hunt down bugs and find them, not when the vast majority of work is already done.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 7:23 pm

There was a long period of time after Fallout 3 when Bethesda was literally doing nothing.

If you consider developing skyrim nothing then yes.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:36 pm

Nope, this is completely new. Not the engine they used for OB and MW.

When "update" is big enough and parts are re written completely it is technically a new engine. I'm not saying that a lot of work was not put in to it, but it has to may similar visual features not to be heavily based on Oblivion's programming.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 2:13 pm

@sentakai, (Dragonborn1)
oh, the ignorance. in fact the first game with the RAGE engine from Rockstar was that Table Tennis game which they used for EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, hone the engine. you screwed yourself so bad.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:49 pm

So they built a brand new engine and a massive new entry in the elder scrolls since oblivion and they also developed fallout 3? How is that even possible. That's a massive undertaking. Creating a new elder scrolls is a big enough project but simultaneously developing a new engine and then having to create a massive game like elder scrolls as your very first game on that engine!?!? How? How could they even begin to develop the game when they couldn't be exactly sure what the new engine would be capable of? Not to mention they developed fallout 3 all the while!

What do you mean they can't be sure what the ngin is capable of? They made it.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 4:30 pm

That doesn't neccesarily mean that they know what it CAN do- take the internet, for example. It basically started as a file-sharing system accross different computers. Who would've thought that it could handle real-time data exchange at high volumes for multiplayer games? In fact, it handled so well that only now are we saying "hey, it needs to be upgraded!'"

Eh... no. Little off there in your internet history, plus the developers knew what the internet could do. The funny thing about things that you code, is that you have to tell them exactly what you want them to do. They cannot think for themselves.

I guess people hear "new engine" and they think "from scratch", but that isn't necessarily so. A lot of functions, libraries, APIs, etc., are already written.